I love my kids, I just hate parenting
![[E-card] Weekend Parenting](https://i0.wp.com/dadandburied.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/beach-tired.jpg?resize=500%2C233&ssl=1)
My weekends used to be sacred. Then I had a kid, and they became his weekends.
Suddenly, every weekend is packed with activities, and play dates, and birthday parties. I have to take my kid to all of them, which leaves hardly any time for bars! But that doesn’t mean I don’t find ways to relax.
I’m usually a pretty attentive father, but weekend parenting requires a slightly different approach.
Last week, I wrote about my son’s need to use a nebulizer when his chest gets congested – from his allergies or from a cold.
It’s not the sexiest rig in the world (unless you find Immortan Joe sexy, and if so: YOU’RE SCARING ME), and the first few times we had to put it to use, it was a little freaky. And he wasn’t a lot into it.
Luckily, we discovered that the length of a commercial-free TV show on Netflix matches almost perfectly with the length of the nebulizer treatment. Letting him watch a show while taking his medicine became a convenient solution.
At least, it was convenient, before my son got clued in.
A good friend of mine just had his first baby.
Yesterday, in honor of the happy occasion, I pumped the brakes on my signature snark and shared a rare cheesy post, about some of the the unexpected pleasures of fatherhood. Then I went home, told my son to stop doing something, and had this exchange:
“Why?”
“Because I said so!”
“That’s not a reason.”
Needless to say, today I’m back to my old self.
Kids have an endless capacity for repetition.
I dare you to count how many times yours say “no” or “why” over the course of an afternoon, or how often they want to watch another episode of “Octonauts” or “Rescue Bots”. Sometimes even the same episode!
Children just don’t seem to get sick of things. Parents, on the other hand…
“If you want the unvarnished truth, ask a child.”
So the saying goes, and it’s true. In fact, you don’t even have to bother asking. A child will come up to you, unprompted, and lay you bare in an instant, without a second thought, without even bothering to look back at the mound of ash left in his wake.
Why is honesty a virtue again? I don’t want my kid to be a liar, but a little bit of tact wouldn’t kill anybody. (Especially me. I’m really fragile right now.)